by J. J. Bowden Juan Jose Garcia, Gaspar Atencio and twenty five associates petitioned the Prefect of the District of Bernalillo, Antonio Sandoval, on March 16, 1840, seeking a grant covering the tract of vacant agricultural land known as San Antonito, which is located east of the Sandia Mountains…
by J. J. Bowden On November 1, 1818 Juan Duran, a resident of the Town of Albuquerque, presented a petition to Governor Facundo Melgares asking that a tract of land in the Canon de Carnue be granted to him and twenty others. As consideration for the grant, the petitioners…
by J. J. Bowden The principal motive for the exploration and conquest of the northern frontiers of New Spain by the Spaniards was the search for precious metal. Although the Indians of the Southwest had obtained, copper from the extensive natural deposits in the Santa Rita Basin prior to…
by J. J. Bowden On March 27, 1883 James Addison Reavis petitioned the Surveyor General of Arizona, Joseph W. Robbins, seeking the confirmation of the Peralta Grant. In support of his claim, Reavis filed a number of Spanish documents. The first was a printed copy of a Royal Cedula…
by J. J. Bowden Francisco Montes Vigil, a resident of Santa Fe, petitioned Governor Jose Chacon Medina Salazar y Villaseñor asking for a grant covering the tract of land known as Alameda. In support of his request, he reminded Chacon that he was among the settlers who emigrated…
by J. J. Bowden Elias Brevoort, Matthias Smythe, Augustus Z. Huggins and Luis Elsberg, as legal representatives of the heirs and assigns of Antonio Matias Gomez and Jose Luis Baca de Sondaga, petitioned William L. Campbell, Surveyor General of Colorado, on August 30, 1877, and requested the investigation and…
Gervacio Nolan, a naturalized Frenchman and resident of the Pueblo of Taos, petitioned Governor Manuel Armijo on November 14, 1843 asking for a grant covering a tract of land situated in the valley of the Don Carlos River from its headwaters to the confluence with the Arkansas River. Nolan…
by J. J. Bowden Cornelio Vigil and Ceran St. Vrain, two of the most prominent residents of Taos, petitioned the Governor of New Mexico, Manuel Armijo, on December 8, 1843 stating that they desired: to encourage the agriculture of the country to such a degree as to establish its…
Manuel Bustillo, a citizen of the Presidio of Santa Cruz, petitioned the Governor of Sonora and Sinaloa, Antonio Cordero, on July 21, 1821, and stated that he had a sizeable herd of livestock and needed a tract of land for their preservation. Therefore, he asked leave to purchase the…
by J. J. Bowden In response to a petition presented by Seladon Valdes “and other citizens of New Mexico,” the Governor of New Mexico, Francisco Sarrocino, gave them a colonization grant on the Conejos River in 1833. On account of the hostility of the Indians, which became much more…
